Hi Hillary,
Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!
We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.
We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.
Important note!
Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.
If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.
Okay, let’s get started!
The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.
We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.
Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.
The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.
Regarding passion you picked Stage 1: I’m equally interested in pretty much everything but not especially committed to any one interest .
Regarding perseverance you picked .
As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.
Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.
In week 2, we looked at your interests.
Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.
Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.
Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.
In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.
You said your top three values were hedonism, achievement, and self-direction.
You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.
When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was conscientiousness.
You said your top three talents were social, verbal, and analytic.
We then talked about goal hierarchies.
You said you were not sure yet about your top-level goal.
We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.
A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to survive .
Here is how self-concordant that goal was:
Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.
It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!
Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.
We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:
Work Smart
In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.
You WOOPed!
For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said complete my cis homework .
For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said relief .
For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said mental capacity to solve it .
For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: when i am stuck, i ask TAs for help .
Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.
And here’s how much you learned
These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.
The important thing is that you learn something along the way!
In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.
You shared you’ve done daily practice in sports .
We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.
In week 8, we discussed feedback.
Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!
You said you felt dejected when receiving critical feedback, and dejected when receiving positive feedback.
We then turned to learning about stress.
In week 9, you reported feeling a lot of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being everything combined together- friendships, academics, social judgement and expectations .
We also talked about adversity and failure.
Although related, adversity and failure are different:
Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.
However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…
Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.
And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.
We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.
Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.
You describe the habit you chose as Health .
Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.
Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?
So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.
In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.
Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.
Here’s how you described them:
You also wrote a gratitude letter to Teacher or professor .
In one word, you said it made you feel Grounded .
One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.
… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.
Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.
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Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?
Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.
| |
| Hierarchy of goals that are HARMONIC |
| Interest is an emotion. Mood lasts a few days, emotions do not. |
| Life events instead of age |
| job, career, and calling does not affect happiness |
| if you envision yourself getting into a relationship, you are not |
| you can practise to be a better friend |
| advice results in more concrete suggestions than feedback |
| stress can be enhancing |
| Box 1 is the most important |
| find mentors |
| Mentors dont expect anything but gratitude in return |
In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.
Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:
| |
| Frederique Wollaert |
| I really enjoyed getting to know you this semester. Your kindness has enhanced my experience during Grit Lab. From the beginning of class, your willingness to offer help and your friendly nature have made me feel included and appreciated. I enjoy the unique international perspective you bring from Singapore. During the class discussions, I enjoyed learning more about your baking passion. You are serious when it matters but also see the importance of having fun! I am truly grateful for the connection we have built. Thank you for being an awesome classmate and making Grit Lab a special class!
During your discovery project, I was really happy that you used baking to tell people you are grateful to have them in your life. This is a good combination between doing something fun and relaxing while also having a bigger purpose. I appreciate your openness about not expressing your gratitude before and putting yourself in that vulnerable position. I was fascinated by what you already baked, it looked amazing! I can’t wait for what other recipes you are going to try. |
| Kyuho Lee |
| Hillary, it’s been amazing to get to know you throughout the semester! You’ve always been so kind and I really appreciate the great energy that you bring to class every day. I loved getting to hear your weekly updates about baking and CIS, and will miss hearing about them next year! I will never forget the day that you brought in your mochi - it was so good and made my day. Your discovery project, where you used baking as a means to express gratitude, was heartwarming and inspiring. It great to hear you share your journey of learning to express gratitude more openly, and your vulnerability in doing so was deeply impactful. Hillary, you’ve truly made a difference this semester, and I can't wait to see how you continue to grow and inspire. |
| Francesco Salamone |
| Hillary is a lively team member and contributor to our team dynamics. During our discussions, I always appreciate her way of balancing seriousness with fun. She is an attentive listener who will ask follow-up questions showing her genuine care. Whether she shared about her latest baking successes or the nuances of being an international student, I found every interaction so far insightful. In regards to her discovery project, Hillary has proven to be gritty with a strong focus on gratitude that captured my attention. I enjoyed witnessing her progress throughout the semester and in the final presentation, especially when she described how she leveraged baking to reflect on genuine gratitude towards her friends. She went beyond a kind gesture and connected her personal life to course content, for example when introspecting on whether she cooks to be a matcher or giver and how that affects her connections at Penn. |
We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.
Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?
Drumroll please…
Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.
In any case, grit is not built in a day…
…remember that progress is never smooth…
…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.
With grit and gratitude,
Angela and the Grit Lab team.